f13.net

Hey guys, im hoping some one here can give me some advice.

The problem:
When I shut down my computer, it takes upwards of 10 minutes to shut down.

I have noticed that about 10 seconds after I hit shut down, a little window comes up "ccApp not responding" I click end task, and it still hangs for 5 to 10 minuutes. I cant ctrl-alt-del to get to my proccess window, nothing happens. I tried shutting it down with the proccess window open, and if I try and end a task or anything, it says "You cannot do that because your computer is shutting down".

I am running Windows XP Pro. I think ccApp is a Norton app, and I think this problem happened after I recently did a major update to Norton Internet Securities. I not sure though.

My next step is going to be disabeling Norton in start up, and see if that works, but I was wondering if any one had any other advice for me, or had experianced some thing like this. I ran Norton virus scan, Ad-Aware, and Microsoft Anti-Spyware. All came up empty except Ad-aware, and it still didnt help the problem.

Google-fu:


Not that this solves the problem or anything but it confirms what you were thinking.

Edit: More info
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/5faa3ca6df6f549888256edd0061c0a4/10c2fdd9a6f5d98288256d75006b7b86?OpenDocument&src=bar_sch_nam

Antivirus software generally sucks.

The key is that it sucks just a little bit less than contracting a virus, so they stay in business  :-D

Antivirus software is overrated. I wouldn't run it continually, have a task setup to automatically run a scan once a week (or even every night) when you aren't using the computer.

If you do unsafe things so that you are constantly getting valid virus blocking popups, then you should try to modify your bad habits. :-P

Yeah, it's mainly the "running continually" thing that messes things up.  Doing a sweep now and then is good, having some paranoid background process arbitrarily closing ports and locking files that you're trying to use is bad.

Realtime AV is for stupid users, but it is good for stupid users to have AV.  Stay patched, don't install crap off the net, and don't clickity on attachments when you don't know what they are.  Filter executable extentions in email, and AV on the email server for inbound stuff.  You're now just about bulletproof to anything except what won't get caught by the AV anyhow.  Periodic scans are a good habbit, but not necessary.  If there is a possibility of something getting by, it'll be when everyone else has it.

For home use - Realtime AV can screw up all sorts of things, esp. anything that writes its own temp files.  Watch as your AV thrashes the disk trying to play catch-up to your app.  Your best bet is to archive often (daily if you can), since you're more likely to get caught with a dead disk than a virus, long as you're carefull.

So, I went to the Symantec site, and followed all the steps they suggested. Now my computer shuts down fast every other time or so. Gah.

I cant figure out how to turn off Norton Internet Securities at start, it has so many boot up programs. I wish there was a switch "dont boot up at start". But I cant find it.

Start>Run>Msconfig

Startup Tab>

uncheck ccApp (or whatever specific app you don't want starting at bootup, like msmsgs, quicktime, etc)
ok
reboot
check "Do not show this Again" on the warning window that comes up when you restart.

msconifg - a (former) tech support monkey's best friend

Thats what Im going to do tonight. I just wish there was an easy way to disable the whole program with one click.

That would be too easy. So would putting the programs in the "Start Up" folder (you know the folder Microsoft setup explicitly for this sort of thing...) so you could just drag them out to disable them.

I just got this computer.  First thing done to it is to remove anything with the name Norton on it.  The second thing I do is disable System Restore.  Then I search and destroy all sorts of things.  It's like PvP.

NOD32 (http://www.nod32.com)

Best anti-virus you can get and runs with about a 2MB memory footprint. Integrates with most email clients if you want it to, has real-time scanning, scheduled, etc. etc. etc., but is not bloatware and does not cause your startup and shutdown times to grow ridiculously long. Oh, and it has passed the most VB100 virus tests of any consumer AV to date (34) and has only failed 3 times (2002 on SuSE Linux, 2000 on WinNT and 1998 on DOS). I cuold go on, but suffice to say that it is good. Its heuristics are the best. It detected the Bagle family of viruses and protected against them before it was even a known virus. No other AV was able to do that. Okay, really, I'm done rambling about that.

"But I need a firewall, too!" you say? Linksys BEFSX41. Or any router that includes a firewall with Stateful Packet Inspection. This is important. You want the Stateful Packet Inspection feature. These routers will typically cost slightly more. For that Linksys, you're looking at $99 USD at the most. Consider that you pay $50 USD per year for that Norton Internet Security suite and it's worth the money just to buy a router. Easier to administer the firewall as well and a hardware firewall isn't going to screw with your operating system the way Norton does. Add to that the system resources you save since the firewall doesn't run on the PC. In addition, you can enable Windows firewall (for XP users) if you're very paranoid and you've got an extra layer of protection.

"But I need a privacy protection tool, too!" you say? All I can say to this is to be careful about what sites you surf. I have never used a privacy protection tool myself and have never encountered problems... yet. But if you are paranoid and use a web browser, you can set your cookies security to a high level and set the browser to never remember usernames, passwords and form data (which means you'll be retyping information a lot, but there's always a trade-off - speed or security, your choice). I have used an evaluation copy of Webroot's Window Washer and it works quite well. It has features to allow shredding of data as well if you need to protect yourself from the FBI. *shrug* As far as protection against spyware and such, Microsoft's AntiSpyware (free) is still the best at catching the stuff (thank you Giant Company for making it). Webroot's Spy Sweeper is pretty good as well still, but can get false positives so be careful. And I have heard that Spyware Doctor (I think that's the name) is very good as well. In the interest of saving computer resources for where you need them, however, I would recommend picking one and using only one as they all have real-time scanners and additional background processes that run on your PC. Then if you want to be extra clean, you could run Ad-Aware, Spybot and CCleaner every once per month (or week).

Why did I post all this shit? Because you need to remove Norton from your PC to solve your problem. It is bloatware first and foremost and while they have a well-written AV engine and are on top of new virus threats (more money = more people to research), their software is extremely invasive to the Windows OS and registry and is well-known for causing users to have to do clean installs of Windows, particularly after they have tried to uninstall Norton. So user beware, but if you're feeling lucky and comfortable with it, remove Norton, install NOD32 and buy a router with a firewall. That should fix things for you and should trim your yearly update costs to ~$30 USD (the cost of a year subscription to NOD32).

Ok, I'll chime in with some Norton hate. I hate Ghost. I'm trying to Ghost a drive to an external USB drive. Simple right? I've been dicking with it on and off for months. I hate the overly complex, bloated shitbag Norton suite. Now instead of having a nice backup, I have to start over from scratch so Norton's fingerprints aren't all over my clean install.

I use Bombich's NetRestore (http://www.bombich.com/software/) for our Macs, because it's extremely simple and easy, and it always works. I'm going to give it a shot at this windows image, though I'll have to reformat in FAT32.

Fuck Norton.

So, I went in to my msconfig and disabled ccApp.exe, now Norton doesnt start up its auto protection, but I still have norton proccess running. I guess im going to try and uninstall the whole program tonight.

On the bright side, my computer is running fast and fine now that norton is not starting up.

Do what I did with Poptart's new computer (which came with that shit installed on a 60-day trial).

Control Panel > Add Remove Programs > Remove

Or, do what I do with a new computer.  Format C, then pull out the OS disk.  Less time trying to track stuff down put there by nameless vendors who have more time to burry it in the registry than I care to spend looking for it.

Yes, this is always Step 1 with a new computer. And again every 2-3 years or so (usually in conjunction with a mobo+cpu upgrade). Don't ask why, just do it!

I swore of MacAfee and Norton years ago - that stuff drags my system down too much.  I've been using Grisoft AV Free.  Dunno if it's the best but I'm so careful anyway the only time my systems in the last decade had a virus was before I locked my eldest daughter out of them... :)  For spyware I'm using the Microsoft beta - it's only about the third best rating but it's free - for now anyway.

Microsoft Anti Spywear has nothing of Ad-Aware. I run the deep scan on microsoft, find one thing, then run adaware and find like 20+. Adaware is free also.

Be aware though that most of what Ad-Aware is finding is mere tracking cookies. Not that they're a good thing to have on your PC, but they aren't actively running on your PC either. Notto get into a debate here since I use all of these programs daily at work. Really, if you run MS AntiSpyware, Ad-Aware and one other, you typically catch 99% of the malware on a PC (viruses not included).

Most of what Soukyan said is what I do, too.  The Linksys BEFSX41 is only $75 at Bestbuy... I could have had it for $65 from Amazon but I didn't know.   :-(  I don't need anything else in the way of a firewall.  I also encounter a lot of problems with things like Aim so I remove anything that implies it's even a distant relative of AOL.  I use something like the Trillian client instead and only have that strange "ding dong" sound thingy problem now and then... which I can't seem to get rid of.  I'm sure no one know what the hell I'm talking about again.

I know exactly what you are talking about Signe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_tremens)

Wait.
This is not the thread about alcohol withdrawal, is it ?

Oi!

So now that I have disabled Norton, for some reason, certen webpages wont show up. I just get "Page not found" but if I reenable Norton, then I can view the webpages again. ARG. this is driving me insane.

Dude, uninstall that shit. There is nothing can be done about Norton problems that doesn't begin with Control Panel - > Add/Remove Programs.

Yeah. Gotta love Symantec product locks on your PC. This is exactly what I mean when I say that Norton is invasive. I had a friend who suddenly could not load SSL pages in his web browser. His Norton subscription had expired and he had to renew to fix the problem. The funny thing is, he couldn't renew that online either because their login page uses SSL. He had to call them. I told him to just uninstall it next year.

You should do the same. Uninstall. Oh, but back up your data first and cross your fingers and say many prayers because Norton does not always go down without a fight. Sure, the progress bar might look harmless, but after that post-uninstall reboot, things may not be as they should. Have a Windows CD handy.

If shit doesnt work after uninstalling Norton, its almost certainly forcing stuff to DependOnService. You'll need to search the registry for SYMTDI or NISDRV and remove those. Other than that, its possible it left the ScriptBlocking component lying around  as some versions do if not de-installed from safe mode. Check by looking in  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices.

I'm going to look into Soukyan's reference, but I am a longtime happy user of AVG from Grisoft.  I update and scan daily, and run it full time, with little problem.  I have seen Norton fuck shit up in different versions and different OS's many times.  I run Ad-Aware once a month, and usually find a few cookies.

I'll also recommend Grisoft's AVG. It's done it's job without getting in the way for me for quite a while.

Norton is gone. So far all problems are also gone. Now I need to find me another virus program and firewall. My friend recomended a few to me. So Im going to try them.